Scott Anderson, Ph.D.

Why would a yoga teacher return to school? What will you study? How will you pay for it? What if you don’t get into the program? Don’t you have enough on your plate? What about your cats? Aren’t you kind of old for school? OK – maybe one of those questions hasn’t been asked very often, but the others sure have been! In this posting, I’d like to share some of my thoughts on returning to school. There are three primary motivations underlying my unfolding educational plans: I’m hoping to hone my observational/research skills, write more credible books, and get the word about yoga/activity/meditation out to a wider audience. I was trained as a scientist, and while the scientific method has remained part of my intellectual process, my paradigm has become progressively more descriptive over the years. While I believe this approach has opened Alignment Yoga to a broader audience, I also believe the descriptiveness of my teaching will benefit from a more rigorous , scientific met

Worrying too much about alignment can fan the flames of anxiety. (circa 1985, laundry product anxiety) “When my hips are open, my back will feel strong." “Opening my chest will open my heart.” “My psoas is pulling my shoulders forward.” As the developer of Alignment Yoga, I may give the impression that I'm all about alignment, all the time. To some extent I do employ alignment as a compass to guide our work with body and mind but I’ve also seen firsthand how alignment can fan the flames of anxiety, lead to more discomfort in the body, and debilitate a healthy sense of self. Many of us come to the table with the view that our body is a “fixer-upper” project. If only my shoulders were balanced, my hips were open, and my shoulders pulled back… then I could be happy. The quotes at the beginning of this posting are common refrains in the yoga world. While there may be some truth within their proclamations, embedded within them is a view that the body is som

As some of you already know, I’ve decided to go back to school. Returning to school is something I’ve long considered, and just recently it seems the planets have aligned in such a way that it seems doable. So, what does a middle-aged yoga teacher study? Years ago I was admitted to a PhD program at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities. I studied Sport and Exercise Science for a short while, then ultimately left the academy to focus more hours per day on the yoga mat. While spending my 20’s focused on yoga gave me the grounding of 10,000+ hours of practice, one of my few life regrets has been prematurely leaving my academic course of study. In support of this long-standing interest, I will be applying to the PhD program at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, this time in the Kinesiology Department. I’m interested in how movement, and particularly aerobic exercise, impacts the meditating brain. There is growing evidence that meditation rewires the brain. And it appears

The other day I received a Facebook message from a yoga teacher based in Australia. His query was simple and straightforward: what are the benefits of alignment in the practice of yoga? What a great question! We’re exploring alignment in this practice, and to what end?  I experience alignment awareness as having two primary benefits. One of the benefits of exploring alignment in the yoga poses is the potential to rebalance aging bodies, and the other benefit is to help focus and calm the mind. We generally move our bodies from the places of least resistance. When we’re young, moving the body from the flexible places generally isn’t very problematic since most of the body tends to be pretty flexible. As we age, however, moving from the points of least resistance can cause two problems. When we move from the points of least resistance, the flexible places tend to get more flexible. What’s the problem with greater flexibility, you may ask? Excessive flexibility leads t